Spaniards seize race hate accused

Published on Sunday 24 April 2005 01:03

SPANISH police have arrested a suspected British right-wing activist who had jumped bail and travelled to the resort of Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol.

Acting with local police on an international arrest warrant, special agents detained the man, identified as M N Atkinson, the founder of the ‘Racial Volunteer Force’.

Atkinson had been jailed in Britain in 2003 and recently released on bail, a police spokesman said.

"It looks like he took advantage of his freedom on bail to travel to the southern Spanish coast," the spokesman added.

If his extradition goes ahead Atkinson will be charged along with at least six others who are due to stand trial at the Old Bailey accused of inciting racial hatred through the Stormer magazine, published by the Racial Volunteer Force, an offshoot of the neo-Nazi organisation Combat 18, and on the internet.

Police forces from Bedfordshire, Lincolnshire, Surrey, London, Merseyside and Manchester combined in a crackdown on the group in an operation codenamed Attend.